Leicestershire Teenage Pregnancy Partnership

Reducing teenage pregnancy is important for a variety of reasons – lack of knowledge, lack of confidence, poor access to advice and support and low aspirations are all negative outcomes which are addressed through approaches to reduce teenage pregnancy.

The role of the Leicestershire Teenage Pregnancy Partnership (LTPP) is to implement and facilitate a Local Delivery Plan to ensure that local targets are achieved.

The LTPP includes a large number of agencies who work together to prevent unplanned pregnancies and support young parents.

Since the baseline year in 1998, Leicestershire’s under 18 conception rate has reduced by 30.3%.  Notionally rates have decreased by 24% (Office for National Statistics 2011)

Leicestershire’s under 18 conception rate (26.5) is lower than the rate in the East Midlands (34.5) and in England (35.4).

The overall reduction in the under 18 conception rate since the baseline is good news but ongoing work is needed to maintain the downward trend.

2012/13 Target for the under 18 conception rate

Progress in reducing the under 18 conception rate has been positive but analysis of progress so far indicates that the change has been controlled and as such does not equate to a significant statistical change.

Leicestershire needs to be aiming to maintain or reduce the figure of 300 under 18 conceptions per year (75 per quarter). This equates to a rate of 26.1 per 1000 or less to allow the statistical variation to reduce.

Support of young parents - Targets for 2012/13

Work to support teenage parents continues to be important. We know that early parenthood brings with it increased risks of poverty; poor health outcomes; poor housing; and lower levels of attainment and employment. We also know that these risks can be managed and that we have made significant progress locally in increasing the number of appropriate Education, Employment and Training (EET) opportunities and their take up.

Work to support teenag parents contributes to a number of strategy areas including the emerging troubled families.

The target in 2012/13 are;

• 80% of young parent’s to be engaging with services -
• 60% of young parent’s to be participating in EET

Further Information